The Brookhaven Motel murders
The Yang family, husband seventy-six year old Yen-Yi Yang, and wife sixty-three year old Tsai-Shai C. Yang, were immigrants from Taiwan. They ran the Brookhaven Motel located at 10411 South Vermont Avenue in South Central Los Angeles along with their forty-three year old daughter, Yu-Chin Yang Lin, and son Robert. Yu-Chin had recently joined them from Taiwan.
According to court transcripts, at approximately 5:00 a.m. on March 11, 1979, Stanley Williams entered the Brookhaven Motel lobby and then broke down the door that led to the private office. Inside the office, Williams shot and killed Yen-Yi, Tsai-Shai, and Yu-Chin, after which he emptied the cash register and fled the scene.
Robert, asleep with his wife in their bedroom at the motel, was awakened by the sound of somebody breaking down the door to the motel’s office. Shortly thereafter he heard a female scream, followed by gunshots. Robert entered the motel office and found that his mother, his sister, and his father had all been shot; the cash register was empty. It was later determined that the Brookhaven incident netted Stanley Williams approximately one hundred and twenty dollars.
The forensic pathologist testified that Yen-Yi Yang suffered two close range shotgun wounds, one to his left arm and abdomen, and one to the lower left chest. Tsai-Shai also received two close range wounds, one to the tailbone, and the other to the front of the abdomen, entering at the navel. Yu-Chin Lin was shot once in the upper left face area at a distance of a few feet.
Witnesses testified that Williams referred to the victims in conversations with friends as "Buddha-heads", a derogatory term for Asians. This implied that it was more than a robbery and in fact a racially based crime.
